Touka Kouka wa Uso Desu
by 3KP-3vil.Kitty.Productions
Summary: For full summary see the intro on chapter 1. Edward has been gone for a year and Roy is falling to pieces. Enter an old friend with intents to put things right... RoyEd Eventual yaoi.
1. Sudden Appearance

**MAJOR SPOILERS!! MAJOR SPOILERS!! MAJOR SPOILERS!! MAJOR SPOILERS!! MAJOR SPOILERS!!**  
(Don't read beyond this point if you don't want to read any Fullmetal Alchemist series spoilers.)

**Introduction:** Okay, this isn't my first shot at Fullmetal Alchemist but it is the first posted piece for FMA that I've written. I'm really in love with the series. I've seen all 51 episodes of the series fan subbed but I've only seen the first DVD of the series in English. I've seen the Conqueror of Shambala and finished the Broken Angel PS2 game as well. I've read the translated manga up to the sixth volume but I've read from there to chapter 43 of the scan-translation and I have to say that while I think the manga is more interesting I know the anime better so this is based off the anime. The entire point of this story is that I didn't like the movie's ending, although the Elric brothers were able to stick together. It just didn't make me happy with the movie as a whole so this is my version of a perfect ending... though it isn't really _perfect_.  
**Basics:** There are MAJOR SPOILERS for a lot of different episodes in this story and in this chapter alone. I'm disregarding the movie and anything that showed Ed when he got to our world the second time. I'm taking artistic license with some alchemic theories and practices and I'm hoping that it all seems like it's possible based on what is known about Alchemy in the FMA universe.  
**Rating:** I'm bad at ratings. For now this chapter of the story is rather mild but I'm aiming for NC-17 overall...  
**Warnings:** Yeah, if you didn't know from my other works or whatever, I'm a yaoi (male homosexual relationships for those of you who don't know this term) girl. For fan fiction I write yaoi and so far only yaoi. My original works are different but I haven't posted anything original yet. My aim is to somewhere along the lines make this story explicit. I don't write PWP but really my stories are just vehicles for me to get to the sex. Yeah, I'm a pervert and I know it so you don't have to tell me; I'm proud of it. And in FMA I'm a complete RoyEd whore. Meaning, the main pairing in this and probably every other FMA story I write will be RoyEd.  
**Notes:** When I get stuck on angst I really get stuck so if I'm trying to change moods I have to cut off chapters and reset my own mood. This chapter is all angsty and the first half is pretty depressing but the over all story is going to be of a lighter mood, just so you know.

There was rain and there was quiet. It was night, the sort of night when Roy Mustang's eye would ache because there was nothing to keep him from the memories. Oh, he had tried to find salvation from those ghosts of the past at the bottom of a bottle. But in the end he always felt like that would be running away from his punishment, the one he deserved for all he had failed to do, and he was the one who brought them to the foreground of his mind.

There were people missing from his life, people who were very important, people he cared for so much it hurt to remember them and to not be near them. It hurt to not be able to see them, to know they were okay. Three truly stood out in his mind, three in particular. Maes Hughes was the first. The man had been as a brother to him, his closest friend who knew all his secrets and who had been a proud and doting father and husband. The second was Alphonse Elric. Though he could have gone and visited him whenever he wanted it was too hard for him to see the boy. Al reminded him so very much of the third person he missed. It seemed wrong after so many years of seeing them together everywhere to see one without the other, one without the memories of all the other had done for him. The third was, of course, Edward Elric. As much as Roy hated to admit it he had become exceedingly attached to the boy genius he had and there was no getting around it.

The Ed shaped hole in his life was the most painful, most unforgettable, because while he knew that Alphonse was running about in green fields watched over by the Rockbell family and Maes was not a question mark, as much as it hurt though the ache had dulled, Edward's whereabouts were unknown. No body, two empty graves for the Fullmetal Alchemist, and Roy wanted to believe that he was alive somewhere. He wanted to but he didn't _know_. Knowing one way or the other might hurt but it would also bring relief. And that made him angry. Ed had always run around without telling him where he was definitely going to be, had always exploited the unusually long leash that the Colonel had allowed him and he had been left to make excuses to his own superiors about why he allowed it. And now, now when Roy needed most to just know, he had yet again disappeared for some place unknown.

But this time there was no reassuring phone call from whatever place he ended up in or some train station while he was in transit. There was no letter or report delivered to his desk that documented at least where he had been or where he thought he would go next. And the black haired man was angry for that though he wasn't sure if he was angry with Edward or at himself for how he had _let_ the blond walk away when it had been clear that, as much as he would never ask for it, he had needed help or even just a little support that last time they had talked. He hadn't even been allowed a proper good-bye.

With a final swig from the suddenly emptied bottle, he damned himself again. He had lost count of how many times he had told himself he deserved this hell that was his life and he would be thrown into the actual hell when his life was up but it didn't matter. It was true, as far as he was concerned, so it hardly mattered how often he said it. He often entertained the thought that maybe he was already in hell and that's why everything seemed to drag on forever and he didn't seem to look his age. He wondered if he had died in Ishbal. He wondered if the boy had killed him instead of the other way around and everything else he remembered from that time and all the other times since were other people stuck in hell with him. But then he remembered Gracia, Elysia, and Maes and knew they could never be in hell. And then he has to face that it was all _real_.

And he's angry still but for another reason. As adult as he was, as mature as he has always been, he wants to shout that it's not _fair_. All that has happened isn't fair. It wasn't fair that the people of Ishbal had been subject to such slaughter or that the very art they feared and hated was the very one used to destroy them and scatter their people to the winds. It wasn't fair that he had been made to kill a child just because he had red eyes and just because of where it was that he was born. It was unfair that he had killed two compassionate doctors who treated wounded no matter who the wounded were. It wasn't fair that Winry had to lose her parents and Pinako had to lose half her family.

It wasn't fair that Hughes had died and Ed had actually blamed himself for it. It wasn't fair that in the end Maes had been doing such dangerous things just so he could help Roy rise in the ranks. Or that Elysia's only thought at the funeral was that Maes couldn't go to work if he was buried and they had to _stop because her daddy had work to do_. It wasn't fair that Gracia, the kindest woman Mustang had ever known, had to bury the man she loved more than anyone but their daughter.

It was unfair that Edward and Alphonse had lost their mom after their father had abandoned them for who knows that reason. It was unfair that they had had enough talent to be able to draw and activate such a complex transmutation circle but not enough to make it work despite all their good intentions. It was unfair that Al's whole body had been taken and Ed had been left without his leg and with the guilt that he hadn't suffered the same as his brother. It was unfair that Ed had to sacrifice his right arm to save Al when it should have been more than enough that he was _willing_ to sacrifice everything to save his brother and was only given his soul. It wasn't fair that Roy manipulated Ed into joining the military just for his own gain. It wasn't fair that the colonel had decided to let Edward go rescue Alphonse alone so that he could go and have his own vengeance. It wasn't fair that the four years that Ed and Al had traveled together on their quest and Edward himself had been taken from Alphonse so that he could have his body back.

Roy Mustang didn't see any of it as equivalent exchange. He couldn't see how it all came out even. He looked at it over and over and always came up with a negative number, never a wash. How could such suffering and loss ever be set right?

There were far too many injustices. There were far too many things he could have done differently. And he hated hind sight. He hated being able to look back and regretting the things he had done, the things he didn't do. And the only reason he didn't end it himself is because he knew Edward would hate him for it, using him as an excuse to run away. So he didn't do that irreversible and selfish thing that would only send him to some place marginally worse than where he was because if there's one thing he didn't want it was for Edward to really, honestly hate him.

And maybe that was enough. To know that Ed had let him know that for all he said and shouted that he did, he _didn't_ hate Mustang. Maybe he even grudgingly respected the man. As much as others might have told him he was only guessing and self-justifying or whatever, not that they ever did, he knew the elder Elric brother well enough to know how to read his eyes, how to look past the posturing and the aggression. He could see every single insecurity laid bare as if the boy wanted him to see them and it was that night, with the rain and the quiet that he realized that Edward _had_ wanted him to see, wanted to share that part of himself with Roy. And he cried to himself as he sat holding an empty bottle by its neck in one fisted hand, legs drawn up with the other arm laid on his knees, and his head resting on his wrist wondering why it took him a year to see it.

He sat in the corner of his dorm's study/living area, back curved and bones obvious beneath skin that was stretched tight over his too thin form. His sobs were muted by his clenched jaw, lips drawn back from his teeth in an anguished grimace. The loudest noise was from his unsteady and erratic inward breathes through his slightly runny nose and sucked through his gritted teeth. He knew that in the morning his subordinates would know that he had had a hard night and they would try to help, offering companionship and/or hook ups with beautiful girls who were dying to go out with him. He hadn't dated since he had gone out to Eastern Headquarters and then went to chase down Fullmetal and he really didn't care to ever date in the way he had before ever again. He no longer suffered from a large sexual appetite and there was also the fact that he just wasn't interested. He didn't need or want their pity though he thanked them when he turned them down. After all they were just trying to show him the support they thought he needed.

However, it wasn't their support he needed. It wasn't their encouragements and condolences that he wanted. They could never give him the one thing he wanted more than all else, the one thing that he'd sacrifice himself for if only he knew how: Edward Elric. He'd use himself to transmute the boy back but he had spent his time when he had learned alchemy focusing only on fire and neglecting all else but the basics. He seriously regretted it. But then again, he surmised that if a genius had to go about it very carefully there was no hope that he could do it and he would never subject the memory of Edward to being ruined by some homunculus with his looks but not him in all the ways that counted.

And for all the thinking of how to get him back, Roy hadn't come up with a single lucid working plan or idea or theory, leaving him exactly where he had started... without Edward Elric to annoy, to anger, to order around, to look after, to protect, to keep him safe from himself as he had wanted to do from the time he had seen the boy broken and half dead without a right arm and without most of his left leg. And he wept even more openly at that.

(Scene break to the next evening...)

The haggard look on Brigadier General Roy Mustang's face had nothing to do with his frustrating and yet normal day of work and everything to do with the emptiness of his dorm. As much as he didn't wish to date just for a fling, just for sex without commitment, he was lonely. He had come to admit a lot of things to himself since his life had become so empty, things that he would only admit out loud to the proper audience and no one alive or in his immediate vicinity matched that description. He was alone when he went to his small but seemingly cavernous dorm and so he usually stayed late at the office those days, putting off paperwork until the close of normal work hours and then he would "stay behind to catch up". His staff all knew that he was avoiding going home for as long as possible.

Some nights he didn't go home at all and instead he slept at his desk or on one of his couches. Riza hated finding him like that because then he would half asleep all day and his state of dress was usually unacceptable in both appearance and odor. She had demanded that if he was going to keep doing it then he had to have a spare uniform, a clean one, in his office so that he could change in the morning and that he also had to have toiletries so that he could look at least half decent should any superiors have any reason to see him. But he knew she hated that he slept there because he couldn't sleep comfortably on those couches and she wanted him to take care of himself. He however, didn't care any longer for him own well being.

As much as he had wanted to stay at the office he knew he needed to sleep in a bed and it would be the first time in a week that he would. The night before he had fallen asleep on the wooden floor and it had put all sorts of kinks in his neck, back, arms, and legs. He had been one giant walking knot of irritated muscles all day. He was dimly grateful that he was too exhausted and aching to try a repeat of the drunken mess he had been just twenty some hours earlier. He went to take a shower first, hoping that would somewhat alleviate the pains in his weary body. When he emerged, with only a pair of sleep pants riding low on his hips he was struck with the feeling that he wasn't alone.

He stopped dead in the doorway between his bathroom and bedroom and stood, his face not showing the shock he was feeling, nor the small niggling instinct to fight or flee. His eyes swept over the dark room. He cursed himself for having not turned on the lights on his way to the shower. Without any further thought and without warning he lunged at the bedside table and reached underneath the top to get at the spare gloves he kept taped to the underside. His face did show his shock and slight panic as he found nothing. ((They're gone?!)) And he knows the person is in the room watching him. His fear is confirmed by the good natured chortle that escapes his uninvited guest but his fear and surprise fades into relief tinged with confusion. "You really should just call to tell me you're coming or even use the door bell as a _normal person_ would," Roy's flat tone spoke of his annoyance.

"Ah, you just don't like being caught unawares, eh, Mustang?" The voice was definitely female and young yet authoritative like Hawkeye's but lighter sounding and more carefree in tone. "It's been a while, hasn't it?" And as his gloves came sailing at him from somewhere over by the window which had the curtains drawn he caught them deftly by sound. He pulled one on and snapped his fingers, lighting the lamps around the room. There stood Colonel Isana Geli Ebba, the Midnight Alchemist who had been missing and presumed dead for the last year.

Roy frowned as he looked at her. She looked exactly the same as he had seen her just over a year ago. Her black fury feline ears and tail twitching and proving themselves to be real to the contrary of her official military records which state they're automail. She was still just as young looking as ever, her body seemingly unwilling to look any older than a mature fifteen of sixteen despite the fact that she was twenty three. Mustang could relate, his own appearance having not really aged since he was about twenty two. "Where the hell have you been? You know that your Lieutenant Colonel and Major have been going crazy don't you?!" He really shouldn't have been surprised. She had waded through hell before and made it alive. He began to wonder if she was capable of dying at all. With a shake to his head he glared. "And why are you here, in my dorm of all places?" That really was the million dollar question.

Isana sighed and shook her head. "You've changed a lot! Used to be you put business off for a while and actually _pretend_ to be a gentleman," she faked a pouted. There had never been anything besides friendship and professionalism between them but Isana was a natural flirt when it came to the people she knew. He supposed it was the interaction that she longed for, having to go months sometimes with only the companionship of Sylvia Wolfe, a mothery-type, and Wynter Crisis, a serious and somewhat cold woman. 

"Well, a lot has changed, has it not? Such as, the revolution of the government, the new Parliament, the inquiries into the military... and it's been assumed that you died. They gave you a grave..." he trailed off at that, staring pointedly at her.

With a shrug the woman headed out of his bedroom, into the living/study area when there were chairs. "I'm going to sit down if I'm actually going to tell you my story because I'm going to fall down if I don't," she called over her shoulder. She didn't try to mask her slight limp, knew there was no point, because Mustang was too discerning and he had learned a lot about footsteps from having been Fullmetal's superior officer. He followed, staring curiously at her legs, especially the one she favored. "Yeah, I'll tell you about that too when I get to it... Do you happen to have anything to drink? It's been a long journey." She didn't bother trying to play the helpless female act with him like she might have with almost anyone else. He nodded and put some tea on for them, letting her rest a minute while he got it together for them.

He handed her a mug and kept one for himself. "Lots of sugar?" He gave her a bland look and nodded slowly, as if she had insulted him by asking. She gave him a brief smile of thanks and took a sip. "Well, where should I begin? You were here where the real action was. And I know what your part was so don't bother playing dumb with me. I was tailing Edward at the time and... well, I saw many things. I'm only back now because the inquires into the military and all are over. You know how it is with me being a chimera and all... I didn't want to end up in a lab again so I hid myself away for the duration," she shrugged as if to say it was no big deal.

"More importantly," she began, turning slightly more serious, "back at that time, I followed him under the city down into this underground cavern. I've since studied it and found it stretches under the whole of Central. But the most shocking thing isn't the cavern... it's the city that lies on the cavern floor," she stared at the table that that separated them, it's polished surface shining in the light and she traces a pattern on it with her forefinger.

Mustang had been interested from the beginning but he was pulled even further into the explanation. "... There's a city under Central? And what of the people there?" He leaned forward and put his mug aside, lightly laying his elbows on the edge of the table, fingers laced, with his chin resting on the bridge his fingers created.

Her eyes were made for seeing in darkness with little light to help and so, in the moderately lit room her pupils were pin pricks of black surrounded by wide blood red irises and she narrowed her eyes on him still tracing some pattern on the table with her finger tip though no longer watching. "There weren't any... Aside from Edward, Alphonse, and a few others who I'll tell you about soon enough it was empty... and has been for over four hundred years." She finished her drawing on the table and held her mug with both hands. Roy's eyes fell and looked not at anything but through everything, his mind working hard. When his head snapped back up, a look disbelief bordering on shocked dismay was etched on his face. She spoke before he could find words to. "Yes, it was one of the two cities that vanished in a single night." Isana's eyes though very odd always held a warmly indulgent look in them. It was a front, they both knew it, and she let it drop then. She was going to tell him everything...

(Will continue with chapter two...) 


	2. Remembrance

**MAJOR SPOILERS!! MAJOR SPOILERS!! MAJOR SPOILERS!! MAJOR SPOILERS!! MAJOR SPOILERS!!**  
(Don't read beyond this point if you don't want to read any Fullmetal Alchemist series spoilers.)

**Introduction:** If you're reading this without the first chapter some things might not make sense so I strongly advise you to read chapter one, Touka Kouka wa Uso Desu Ch. 1, before you read this chapter. This is more character building and foreshadowing for later events but chapter three is on the way and it will have plenty of action and reunions, promise!  
**Basics: **There are MAJOR SPOILERS for a lot of different episodes in this story and in this chapter alone. I'm disregarding the movie and anything that showed Ed when he got to our world the second time. I'm taking artistic license with some alchemic theories and practices and I'm hoping that it all seems like it's possible based on what is known about Alchemy in the FMA universe.  
**Rating: **I'm bad at ratings. For now this chapter the story is rather mild but I'm aiming for NC-17 overall...  
**Warnings: **Yeah, if you didn't know from my other works or whatever, I'm a yaoi (male homosexual relationships for those of you who don't know this term) girl. For fan fiction I write yaoi and so far only yaoi. My original works are different but I haven't posted anything original yet. My aim is to somewhere along the lines make this story explicit. I don't write PWP but really my stories are just vehicles for me to get to the sex. Yeah, I'm a pervert and I know it so you don't have to tell me; I'm proud of it. And in FMA I'm a complete RoyEd whore. Meaning, the main pairing in this and probably every other FMA story I write will be RoyEd.  
**Notes: **I know this chapter has a lot to do with the original character Isana but there is a reason and I liked how I connected her to the past so forgive me if you think there is too much or her and not enough of the actual FMA characters. It is part of the plot though, so it's unavoidable.  
**Writing Conventions:** The use of (Scene) indicates a break either in time or from one setting to another. The use of ((Words.)) is indicative of a character's inner voice/thoughts.

(Chapter Start)

Roy awoke with a start in the morning. He was lying in his bed which he couldn't remember getting into in the first place. "What happened?" He quickly went to his kitchen and saw that the kettle wasn't where he had left it last night when he had heated water for tea. There was no mug in the sink where there should have been two at least. He looked at the table where they had sat and there wasn't a smudge on the surface where Isana had traced out something. And then it crashed over him, the reality of his situation. "A dream... it was only a dream," he said with a sigh and leaned against the back of the couch that was the separator between his dinning room/kitchen and the living room. He sighed and rubbed the heel of his palm into his good and uncovered eye to rub sleep from it.

"Are you talking to yourself? You really have become rather pathetic," a voice said from just below and behind him. Slowly the black haired man looked over one should and saw a very sleepy Colonel Ebba looking up at him with narrowed eyes. "I'm gonna have to do something to make you less of a girl..." she muttered and turned over so she didn't have to look at him. "Now go and get ready for work or you'll be late. I've still got to get a few things done before I can show my face again so don't even mention that you saw anything that even looks remotely like me," she told him, waving a hand limply in his direction in a dismissing fashion.

Despite himself he smiled. It wasn't a dream at least and he could take comfort in that... and she had more to tell him, good news she had called it. "Alright then but will you be here when I get back?"

She sighed in a put-out way. "I don't know." The tone of her voice was rundown and tired. She had a lot on her mind, he could feel it in those three words, and she wasn't ready to share what that was. But as he passed by the end of the couch on the way to the hall where his room and the bathroom was she grabbed his wrist and stared up at him with her piercing eyes. "I don't say what I don't mean, you know that right?"

He had no idea where she was going with that but he nodded anyway. "I know you don't believe in false hope and lies. Your words always hold truth," he confirmed slowly.

She stared him in the eye more intently. "Then believe me when I say that Edward Elric is alive," she told him with every bit of her strength behind it. They stayed like that for a long moment. He was waiting for more, hoping that she would say more. She was trying to determine whether or not he really believed her. Two red colored eyes and one black stayed locked and neither moved for what felt like a lifetime compounded into only a few minutes.

When he pulled away it was because he realized he had to get ready. As he walked down the hallway he stopped for a second and said quietly, "It's enough for now."

He didn't see the soft smile on her face, one that was somewhere between pitying and proud. But she turned over again and shut her eyes. When Mustang went to leave he was fully dressed and groomed for the day ahead of him and over one arm he carried a blanket that he threw over the "sleeping" young woman on his couch. He marched out his door and closed it quietly behind him, locking up from the outside, and paused in the hallway for a handful of second before turning on his heel and walking away with the confidence that everyone knew him for.

As soon as he was gone, Isana threw off the blanket and stood up. She went to the bathroom and took off the military issue black pants that were part of her uniform as a Covert Operations Division member. Her right leg was entirely wrapped in bandages that were red with blood. With a grimace she removed the gauze and cloth. From just above the ankle to the upper part of her thigh there was no skin at all. The epidermis and dermis were missing. She choked back a sob of pain and pressed a hand to her forehead. Taking a white sheet from Mustang's closet she made a mental note to get him a new set as she began to rip it into strips. She wound them around her leg and when she was done and it was secure she pulled her pants back on, sat on the couch and put on her boots, the tails that were the sign of officers and the top coat. Her whole uniform was black and it lacked the designations of rank and accomplishment ribbons that the blue uniforms had.

Once her clothing was all in place she stood up and went to the kitchen's window. She opened it up and looked down at the drop of five stories. Red eyes flitted back to the apartment for a moment, as if trying to remember if she had forgotten anything, and then she used her legs to launch herself out and away from the building. Grabbing a tree branch she used her momentum to swing around and up and used her feet to grab hold of a higher branch. Pulling her body up, she got up onto that one and stood up. Colonel Ebba looked back once more before using the tree limb as a spring board and leaping far away into a nearby park that was abandoned in the early morning.

(Scene)

It was a day for reminiscing, Brigadier General Mustang felt. He pulled out a book that Hughes had given him a few years back, when things had been better. He opened it up and there on the first page was a picture from his school days. He was only fourteen in the picture, next to a fifteen year old Maes Hughes with his arm around a fifteen year old Gracia Whitefield. On Roy's other side was a ten year old girl who looked out of place. She had very long black hair, down to her feet with chin length bangs framing her face which looked similar to the boy's next to her, and she had black eyes just like his too. They looked like they could have been siblings or cousins. ((You've really changed, Isana.)) He thought with a tinge of regret. He remembered when she had smiled easily, smiles that fully reached her eyes.

Pale long fingers turned the page of the album and loomed at a series of pictures. The four of them had been good friends all through the last three years at Central Academy. The pictures showed that over time the youngest of the group got closer to them by her position in the photos which had begun with Isana barely in the frame at all and looking timid, then standing closer and closer, with expressions increasingly moving towards truly happy, until she was in the middle of the group with her arms around her friends and a great infectious grin on her face.

Turning the page again he saw their graduation pictures with Isana held up on Maes' and Roy's shoulders between them and Gracia stood in front of them all. Maes held up two fingers with a lopsided smile, Roy held up three with a wry grin, Gracia held up four with her tongue out but still smiling and Isana held up one in triumph mouth open in joyous declaration. It had been their class rankings.

There was a smile as he looked to the next page, he and Isana and Maes all in full military dress uniform the day they had passed their year long officer's training and were admitted truly as officers, Hughes as a First Lieutenant in the Intelligence Department, Mustang as a Major and the Flame Alchemist and Ebba as a Major and the Midnight Alchemist. Isana had been made to cut her hair and she had it exceptionally short but for her bangs which still framed her face and hung to her chin. Maes held up his papers in the picture as proof and the alchemists held up their watches. In the next picture, Gracia who had been missing from the previous one, stood crying and smiling as Maes slipped a ring on her finger from a kneeling position smiling up at her. The picture was taken slightly skewed because Isana and Roy had both been trying to get the picture but the next one they cooperated on and captured with perfect levelness the fiancés' first kiss as future man and wife.

Page turned, there were two whole pages of pictures from the Hughes' wedding. Everything had been perfect that day and Isana had even worn a dress without complaining and was pictured next to Gracia as her maid of honor, both looking like they hadn't a care in the world. Roy and Maes, side by side, both in tuxedos and looking sharp were smirking into the camera for all they were worth. The actual ceremony was well documented including a perfect shot of the kiss and the newly weds leaving the chapel with Ebba and Mustang throwing rice and flower petals at the pair as they hurried towards an open top carriage waiting to take them to the reception. Dancing at the reception were next, Maes and Gracia and then Roy and Isana with Gracia and Maes pushing them towards one another and the pair rolling their eyes good naturedly. Maes mashing cake lightly into Gracia's mouth and she doing the same to him a second later. The removal of the maid of honor's garter, which had both Isana and Roy blushing like mad but laughing too, because Maes refused to throw one of Gracia's garters. The throwing of the flowers of which the picture after was of Isana aghast and holding the bouquet in her hands as though it was going to kill her and Roy laughing much to hard for her liking.

The pictures after that had the group divided, there were pictures of Gracia with Maes and pictures of Isana and Roy but the group had essentially been split it two. Roy remembered that those were pictures of when he and the black haired young woman had been sent to Ishbal. There were pictures of the Hughes' holding up signs, one word on each, to make a message: 'MISSING' 'YOU' 'BOTH' 'STAY' 'SAFE'. The pictures of Roy and Isana were of them smiling but not really meaning it. They made them to send to reassure the married couple that they were alive. And then, Isana disappeared from the pictures altogether. It had been at that point that she had been promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and put in the Covert Operations Division. She had been on the front lines from then on to just about the end of the war when she had been given the order to bring down Kimblee. Anytime after that when he had seen her, she had been different, her expression pained and her eyes somewhat hollow.

There was one last picture though of the Flame and Midnight Alchemists, it was them both standing in front of a ruined building, looking defeated and destroyed themselves. It had been taken right after Ishbal had been conquered and it was the only picture with the ears and tail that she sported ever since then. That was the last picture of Isana in the whole book and the pictures after with Roy and Maes and Gracia looked somewhat incomplete.

But the pictures went on without her. There were pictures of Roy, Maes and Gracia but there was worry in the faces of the couple and there was a certain haunted quality to Roy's own expression. Then there were pictures with Mustang's subordinates, Havoc and Hawkeye were the first to appear followed by Falman and then Breda and Fuery. Finally there were pictures of Edward Elric and Alphonse, even though Alphonse had never been an official part of his outfit. One couldn't have Ed without Al, that was the way it was with the Elrics. And the Hughes' with Elysia was a well represented block. Some were even taken in the office with the Colonel and his group and the happy parents and their offspring. Only one of those had the Elric brothers as well and that had to be one of Roy's favorite pictures because Edward was holding the baby girl looking at her in wonder and Alphonse was rubbing one of her pudgy cheeks with his leathery glove very tenderly. Gracia was beaming in a way that she hadn't since Isana's drop out of the pictures and Maes looked so damned alive. Roy himself was smirking in a way that he knew meant he was truly happy.

There were pictures of all sorts of times in the office in the East City and then after the transfer back to Central. Lazy afternoons of cards while the First Lieutenant was off on an errand, the shenanigans that his office was well known for such as Breda flipping out over the presence of Black Hayate and Havoc looking glum as a secretary mooned over Mustang and Fuery trying to save a radio he was working on from a spill Falman accidentally made and Edward off on a triad because someone had called him short and Alphonse trying to hold him back from introducing the unfortunate individual's face to automail. There was one of Al filled with cats, running from Black Hayate, as Edward lay sleeping on one of the couches after getting back from a particularly tiring mission, while Breda tried to become one with the ceiling, Havoc was half way out a window because he had been shoved towards it by a huge running suit of armor, Fuery was looking over his shoulder in bewilderment at Al, Falman was cowering before Hawkeye who was scowling and reaching for her sidearm. Another had the group gathered around the group of desks with Havoc, Fuery, Falman, Breda and Hawkeye sitting in their normal places, Fullmetal was taking up a spot to write out a report and Alphonse was sitting next to him scribbling out array ideas while the Colonel leaned over the elder Elric's shoulder to see what he was writing and to make sure it was legible.

The ebon eyed man put the album down on his desk, leaned back in his chair and breathed out heavily. And then he realized something he had never seen before. He flipped it open to one of the pictures of Isana from the Ishbal War era of snap shots and then flipped forward to the later pictures in which Edward appeared, more specifically the ones where Ed first appeared and the ones right before he disappeared.

The man had to flip back and forth quite a bit and when he was done he hung his head in shame.

((Why didn't I ever see it? It was right _there_ all this time!))

He shook his head as if to try and deny what was staring him in the face.

((The same... they had the same look in their eyes. Isana, after she had stopped Kimblee was never the same again.))

He had assumed it was because of the things she had been ordered to do. It had never entered into Roy's mind that she had preformed human transmutation until then and once the thought came it made sense out of so many things he knew it was true.

((She told me of her father, transmuting himself, and having seen the Gate then and gotten a certain amount of knowledge then... Isana told Gracia, Maes and me... Why didn't she tell me about this?! I always thought that those ears had been done to her to make her more alert and the tail to give her better balance... Did she... do that to herself?!))

He slammed his fist down on his desk and that earned him the attention of everyone in the large room outside of the open doors to his own private office. Riza came to the door quickly but without looking rushed. "Sir, are you alright?" There was tangible concern in her voice and he couldn't help but think it must have had something to do with the look on his face which he imagined probably looked pretty fearsome.

"Lieutenant Colonel Hawkeye, I'm quite sorry to do this but I'm afraid I must take off for the day. Something has come to my attention that I must take care of as quickly as I can," he swept out of his chair resolutely in the manner that said he wouldn't allow anyone to deter him. He rarely used that distinct air of authority but when he did everyone took notice and they did as they were told. Hawkeye snapped a salute to him and he tossed one off back to her as he passed her on his way out. "I promise to return as soon as this business is over with."

(Scene)

When Brigadier General Roy Mustang pulled his car up to the cemetery parking lot he paused for a moment before getting out and locking up the vehicle. He strode quickly towards a spot he had been to few times but new by heart. When he got there he wasn't disappointed. Colonel Isana Geli Ebba who was on her knees at the grave of Maes Hughes crying as she ran a hand over the name engraved in the headstone. "He... was killed by Envy... My hiding out for the last year had less to do with hiding from the inquiries and more to do with wanting to find that bastard... I searched in places you wouldn't even believe... and I still have yet to find him..."

The black haired male officer's eyes filled with a knowing look. "Fullmetal... he blamed himself. He told me he was sorry in a letter I received days after he disappeared. He apologized for having killed Maes, Isana... He wasn't even within a mile of him when it happened but he... he felt responsible," he said to her in a whisper.

Tearful blood red eyes looked up at him. "Then we both failed... You failed Edward and I failed to avenge our friend... but I **_won't_** just sit here and wait for it to magically fix itself... I rather try for the rest of my life to make this right than spend it like you've been for the last year. You're not alive, Roy... And Maes would be angry with you for being so stupid." She was angry but not at him. She was angry with herself. "Edward is still reachable. He is your chance to find what it is that we lost in Ishbal. Now are you gonna stay here, where you'll never be able to fix yourself or are you going to come with me and make it right?"

He stared at the grave for a long stretch of time, the wind being the only sound between them, and then he turned around. "Where is it that we're going?"

Mustang didn't see the hopeful and watery smile on the young woman's face as she stood up and followed him to his car.

(Scene)

There was a horrified but amazed expression on the Flame Alchemist's face as he took in the sight that Isana had relayed to him, a city laying in a huge cavern complete abandoned. "The first city," he whispered without even realizing it.

"Preserved and hidden for four hundred years beneath the very heart of Amestris, Welcome to Old Central..."

(To be continued in Chapter Three) 


End file.
